English Stage 6 Annotated Professional Readings Support Document 1999
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English
Stage 6
Annotated Professional Readings
Support Document
1999Every effort has been made to contact all copyright owners. The Board of Studies NSW apologises if it has inadvertently used material in which copyright resides. For acknowledgement in future editions please contact the Copyright Officer at the Board of Studies NSW. The Board of Studies owns the copyright on all support documents. Schools may reproduce this support document in part or in full for bona fide study or classroom purposes only. Acknowledgement of the Board of Studies copyright must be included on any reproductions. Students may copy reasonable portions of the support document for the purpose of research or study. Any other use of this support document must be referred to the Copyright Officer, Board of Studies NSW. Ph: (02) 9367 8111; fax: (02) 9279 1482. © Board of Studies NSW 1999 Published by Board of Studies NSW GPO Box 5300 Sydney NSW 2001 Australia Tel: (02) 9367 8111 Internet: http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au ISBN 0 7313 7514 2 99553
ENGLISH STAGE 6
ANNOTATED PROFESSIONAL READINGS
This list of readings provides annotated references to research and commentary from Australia and
other countries to assist in the delivery of the English curriculum. The articles provide an overview of the
materials that informed the development of the English Stage 6 syllabus.
This list of references is in no way exhaustive.
The references are arranged alphabetically and by date of publication under the following headings:
• Overview of Developments
• Theory
• Theories in Practice
• Responding and Composing
• Assessment.
In addition, a list of websites that offer useful resources for teaching and learning has been included.
Overview of Developments
Lankshear, Colin, ‘Technology blurs the language barriers’, Education Review, Vol 2, No 4, 1998.
In this article, Lankshear offers a definition of the goal of literacy as ‘to pursue the achievement of a
universally literate populace who employ literacies effectively in pursuing their various individual and
shared social, cultural, and economic purposes, in the interests/for the benefits, of all on an equitable
basis.’
He goes on to explain that literacy must be seen as having three interlocking dimensions: the
operational, which means that individuals need to be able to read and write in a range of contexts, in an
appropriate and adequate manner; the cultural, which is a matter of understanding texts in relation to
contexts in order to appreciate their meaning and what it is about given contexts of practice that makes
for appropriateness or inappropriateness of particular ways of reading and writing; and the critical,
which has to do with the socially constructed nature of all human practices and the meaning systems
that bring together language, meaning and context.
But considerations must go further to recognise that social practices and their meaning systems are
always selective and sectional; they represent particular interpretations and classifications. Unless
individuals are also given access to the grounds for selection and the principles of interpretation they
are merely socialised into the meaning system and unable to take an active part in its transformation.
This complex view of literacy is essential given technological developments which can integrate written,
oral and audio-visual modes of human communication. As media create the metaphors of the content of
our culture, those who are constrained by a narrow concept of literacy will be excluded from
participation in our technologically mediated culture.
3English Stage 6 Professional Readings
White, Robert, ‘The State of English in the 1990s’ in The Humanities in Australia into the 21st Century, Vol
2, Discipline Survey, Australian Research Council, National Board of Employment, Education and Training,
AGPS, ACT, 1998.
In his overview of the state of English in Australian academic institutions, Robert White begins by
contrasting the vehement reactions expressed in the media to changes in the discipline of English, with
the celebratory attitude that accompanies innovation in the sciences.
Based on the nature of research being undertaken, he predicts certain areas of English studies will
grow in influence. These he identifies as feminist criticism; cultural materialism and new historicism;
cultural studies and communication studies; postcolonial literatures; creative writing; and Australian
literary studies.
In his conclusions, he outlines the changes that have occurred in the study of English in the 1990s:
texts are interpreted within contexts; the meaning of text is implicated in the reading that reconstructs it;
literature is not seen as a representation of nature but an ideological construction and the accreditation
of popular culture. Robert White recognises that diversity of approach is now a part of this subject and
for this diversity to stand he recommends that students and teachers of English be explicit about
theoretical assumptions.
Green, Bill, ‘Rhetorics of Meaning of Renovating the Subject of English Teaching’, Changing English, Vol
4, No 1, 1997.
In focusing on the issue of how to restore meaning to its centrality in the English classroom, Bill Green
examines what he calls ‘available rhetorics of meaning’. He discusses the current debates on the
nature of language and compares the notion that language is a neutral and transparent instrument for
communicating meaning with the view that language is culturally constructed and its forms impose
meaning on its users. Green argues that both views have a bearing on the way language functions:
meaning is produced in the dynamic interplay of thought, language and social processes.
Green believes that post-structuralism provides tools that are helpful in the teaching of English,
particularly in the exploration of the relationship between language, social institutions and individual
consciousness. The importance of interiority (a key notion of humanism) and the personal growth model
of English can be preserved in critical pedagogy through the idea of agency. Agency refers to the ability
to analyse subjectivity and consider subject positions in order to choose those positions which are the
least oppressive for oneself, others and society. In this way individuals are active in the formation of
themselves and their society.
Green argues for a view of meaning in English curriculum that reconciles the competing notions of
structure and agency into a dynamic unity. Meaning is conceived as both ‘activity and structure, system
and practice, bound together as a complex dialectic which is entirely caught up in the play of history
and social processes.’ (p 25)
Green, Bill, ‘Post-Curriculum Possibilities: English Teaching, Cultural Politics and the Postmodern Turn’,
Journal of Curriculum Studies, Vol 27, No 4, pp 391–409, 1995.
Green here argues that the last few decades of English teaching have been characterised by a concern
with the agency of the student (as against, it seems, a student’s destiny or sense of a traditional role).
He argues that classroom practice has been changing slowly to reflect this concern and will continue to
do so. The ideal of changed classroom politics facilitating broader social change is still relevant. This
shift to a student-centred, socially critical English necessitates a ‘post-curriculum’ that allows a sense of
student agency here-and-now to coexist with traditional English content and goals.
The paper draws together three movements influential in setting the agenda for English recently: the
growth model, the working class activist/reappropriation model and the postmodern, urban, popular
culture trend. These and other forces together constitute the ‘new English’ — ‘postmodern educational
culture’. The new English aims to create as many new meanings and possibilities as are needed for
each individual to find a free, autonomous future. It is, in other words, a utopian venture.
4English Stage 6 Professional Readings
Green suggests that what is needed now is a critical-postmodernist pedagogy:
This involves drawing on and seeking to integrate into a dynamic, strategic synthesis
the currently evolving and ever mutating discourses of critical pedagogy, cultural
studies and postmodernism, within which notions of popular culture, textuality, rhetoric
and the politics and pleasures of representation become the primary focus of attention
in both ‘creative ‘ and ‘critical’ terms. (p 400)
He recommends that reconceptualisations of English must draw on post-Dartmouth initiatives, and
define and re-shape them to accord with new cultural and theoretical understandings.
Theory
Snyder, Ilana, Hypertext: The Electronic Labyrinth, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne,
1996.
Ilana Snyder describes the nature of hypertext and explains how it is positioned within current
understandings of the nature of textuality and the reading process. She demonstrates how critical
theory describes the properties of hypertext in its dissolution of centre, margins, linearity and hierarchy
into open networks, the replacement of the authority of the writer with that of the reader and the
embodiment of the ‘writerly’ text where every reading is a rewriting. She maintains that traditional views
of the canon were based on the stability of the printed word but with electronic hypertext any text is a
temporary structure in a changing web of relationships. Reading and writing therefore are no longer
discrete processes as readers and writers coalesce in their collaborative enterprise. This affects the
nature of texts that are produced as the linearity of narrative is replaced with conceptual accretion as
sound, print and visual images interact on the screen. She amplifies this notion as she describes a
reconceptualisation of narrative form, plot and story, and beginning and end.
Bonnycastle, Stephen, In Search of Authority, An Introductory Guide to Literary Theory, Broadview Press,
Canada, 1996.
This text offers a highly readable outline of the literary theories that have informed English studies,
particularly in the last thirty years. Bonnycastle explains theories clearly and simply and points out their
relevance to familiar experience.
Theoretical notions are grouped into chapters such as ‘Historical Criticism and New Criticism’,
‘Deconstruction’ or ‘Postmodernism, The Eclipse of Grand Narratives, and the Weakening of Shared
Public Meaning’. These chapters are in turn structured under headings or direct questions such as:
‘Why Study Theory Now?’, ’Dialogue as an Analogy; the relation between the Reader and the Writer’ or
‘The Act of Narration’. Each chapter also has suggestions for further reading.
The text provides a useful base from which to question various approaches to composing and
responding to texts and the nature of meaning in and through texts.
Linn, R A, Teacher's Introduction to Post-modernism, National Council for Teachers of English, Urbana,
Illinois, 1996.
One of the NCTE's valuable series, ‘A teacher's introduction to …‘, this text presents in very clear
language for the non-specialist an introduction to the basic tenets of postmodernism, by initially
contrasting them to modernist principles. The theories of Descartes, Nietzsche, Hume and Kant are
discussed and contrasted to the work of Wittgenstein, Barthes, Derrida and, particularly, Richard Rorty.
Examples of postmodern literature are discussed and the book emphasises the knowledge needed by
the secondary teacher.
5English Stage 6 Professional Readings
Strinati, Dominic, An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, Routledge, London and New York, 1995.
This is a clear and comprehensive overview and critique of the theories that attempt to explain popular
culture. It is a valuable guide to theories such as Marxism, Feminism, Structuralism, Semiology and
Postmodernism and will assist teachers in their analysis and evaluation of popular culture.
Griffith, P, English at the Core: Dialogue and Power in English Teaching, Open University Press, Milton
Keynes, 1992.
Post-structuralist literary theory is often shrouded in impenetrable jargon. Griffith cuts through the jargon
in this very clear-headed discussion of the relevance of such theory for the English teacher. Central
issues are questions of unpacking the ideology of texts in classrooms and the political issues of power
that this involves.
Lee, David, Competing Discourses: Perspective and Ideology in Language, Longman, London, 1992.
This book will be a good introduction to sociolinguistics for teachers with little experience in the field. It
gives a good historical and theoretical description of the theories and applies their tools to a wide
variety of literary and non-literary texts.
Crowley, Sharon, A Teacher's Introduction to Deconstruction, National Council for Teachers of English,
Urbana, Illinois, 1989.
As the title suggests, this presents an introduction to the notion of deconstruction for the secondary
teacher. The book concentrates on the work of Derrida, his relevance to English teachers, and the
contrast of his work to traditional literary critics.
Theory in Practice – Approaches to English
Misson, Ray, ‘Will and Story or The Ultimate Metanarrative’, English in Australia, 121, March 1998.
Through the developing narrative of Will the caveman, Ray Misson entertainingly demonstrates how
different aspects of the narrative can be traced. He explores such issues as whether narrative reflects
or actively creates the self and the world and whether it expresses values or imposes ideology.
Pope, Rob, The English Studies Book, Routledge, London and New York, 1998.
This book provides practical support in redesigning English studies. It gives an outline of the major
theoretical positions and suggests ways these can be reflected in teaching practice. Pope also
approaches English studies from another direction — through the exploration of key topics that cut
across specific theoretical positions. In this way he highlights common concerns and key aspects of
difference. Each subsection of the book contains a range of activities, stimuli for discussion and
references for further reading. There is also a substantial anthology of sample texts that can provide the
basis for wide reading and further study and a glossary of common linguistic and grammatical terms.
(The topics and materials in this text are further supported by a website at
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/humanities/home.html)
Sawyer, Wayne, Watson, Ken & Gold, Eva (eds), Re-Viewing English, St Clair Press, Sydney, 1998.
This text looks back to key notions and practices of English teaching from the decades after the
Dartmouth Seminar of 1966 and reconsiders them in the light of developments in English education.
Articles range across the spectrum of English teaching and include imaginative recreation, visual and
critical literacy, cultural studies, popular culture, second language learners, aspects of language etc.
These articles clearly relate theoretical perspectives and educational issues to classroom practice.
There are also sections of the book devoted to ‘applications’ which offer proven ideas for the English
classroom.
6English Stage 6 Professional Readings
Worth, Chris & Guy, Roslyn, Teachers Rethinking English: Critical Theory and Reflective Practice, Victorian
Association for the Teaching of English, 1998.
This book is based on a series of courses sponsored by VATE and run through Monash University on
new literary theory for English teachers. It is divided into two sections. The first, Theory into Practice,
shows the application of post-structuralist and postmodern theory in the classroom through specific
lessons and units. Textual focuses range from Muriel’s Wedding to Patrick White and A Doll’s House.
The second section is a reprint of the highly recommended monograph An Introduction to Literary
Theory by Ray Misson. Misson‘s book deservedly sold out its first print run because of the clarity with
which it deals with contemporary theory and its relevance in the secondary classroom.
Morgan, Wendy, Critical Literacy in the Classroom: The art of the possible, Routledge, London & New York,
1997.
Morgan outlines the theoretical origins of critical literacy and contextualises its practices within the
range of discourses of English in Australia. She argues that the purpose of critical literacy is to ‘focus on
the cultural and ideological assumptions that underwrite texts … [to] investigate the politics of
representation, and … [to] interrogate the inequitable, cultural positioning of speakers and readers
within discourses’ (p 1–2). Her account of the implementation of critical literacy pedagogies across a
range of modes and media demonstrates how teachers’ practice can be clearly grounded in theory.
Bignell, Jonathan, Media Semiotics: An Introduction, Manchester UP, Manchester, 1997.
This is a very approachable text on the theories of semiotics and, in particular, those of Roland Barthes.
The introduction sets out the theoretical bases of the book and subsequent chapters give practical
application in relation to advertisements, women’s magazines, newspapers, television news and
cinema.
Kellner, Douglas, Media Culture: Cultural studies, identity and politics between the modern and the
postmodern, Routledge, London and New York, 1995.
This text provides teachers with resources to learn to study, analyse, interpret and criticise texts of
media culture and to appraise their effects. The approach to theory in this text is inclusive and
pragmatic, using some theories for certain tasks and others for different ones. Kellner begins with a
critical overview of the contesting theories in cultural studies and then analyses a variety of media
products such as the Rambo films, advertising images and the reporting of the Gulf War.
Pope, Rob, Textual Intervention, Routledge, London and New York, 1995.
This text merges the study of language and literature through integrated critical and creative
approaches. It provides a wide range of strategies for exploring texts by intervening at critical points
and rewriting in such a way as to highlight key aspects of texts such as subjectivity and agency, the
process of narration and dialogue and discourse.
The last chapter contains a bibliographic essay that gives an overview of the theories and practices that
inform this pedagogy, a checklist of questions to ask about language forms and features of texts, and a
summary of types of textual intervention.
Andrews, Richard, ‘Towards a New Model: A Rhetorical Perspective’, in English Teaching in Perspective, K
Watson (ed), St Clair Press, Sydney, 1994.
Andrews proposes a model of English that bridges the historic gap between literature and linguistics.
He suggests the study of rhetoric — which he defines as ‘the art of discourse’ — unifies the subject
through analysing the ordering principles of textual production. Rather than restricting attention to the
composed product in the traditional way, a study of the effectiveness of rhetoric focuses on the
description and encouragement of the creative process through an examination of the relationship
between speaker/writer and audience/reader.
Andrews says this way of exploring the relationship between language and literature can be used to
examine the ways in which any discourse produces its effects. This allows for the inclusion of a wide
7English Stage 6 Professional Readings
range of texts such as literary texts, spoken and non-standard forms, visual and media texts and
workplace texts. All texts are seen as acting within their social, political and historical context. Rhetoric
is therefore by its nature, dialogic. The operations of a text may be explored through discourse analysis
and its meaning for a particular audience can be assessed through post-structuralist approaches.
According to Andrews, the Rhetorical Model reconciles dichotomous and divisive emphases in English
teaching and assessment including the splits between language and literature, the literary and non-
literacy, the product and process, interpretation of texts and creation of texts, the spoken language and
the written language, and traditional (new critical) approaches and post-structuralist approaches.
Corcoran, B, Hayhoe, M, Pradl, G, Knowledge in the Making: Challenging the Text in the Classroom,
Boynton/Cook, Porstmouth, NH, 1994.
This text explains aspects of contemporary theory and explores the implications of these aspects for the
classroom. There are 21 articles that deal with responding to and composing texts. They consider such
issues as balancing reader response and cultural theory and practice; Shakespeare, Branagh, and
Popular Culture; challenges of poststructuralist theory for classroom literary study; unconventional
writing etc.
McCormick, Kathleen, The Culture of Reading and the Teaching of English, Manchester UP, Manchester,
1994.
McCormick outlines three models of the teaching of reading and attaches each to literary theory:
cognitive and cultural heritage (focusing on the text); expressivist and reader-response (focusing on the
reader); and the social-cultural model with cultural studies. In her treatment of cognitive theory she uses
schema theory to explain cultural influences and undertakes a similar exercise with the cultural
positioning of the reader in dealing with the expressivist model. She provides an analysis of the meeting
points of the various theories. She goes on to develop a pedagogy of reading, including a reading of
literature from this position. The second part of the book describes her ideas in practice and
demonstrates the practical implications of theory.
Naidoo, Beverley, ‘The Territory of Literature: Defining the Coastline’, English in Education,
Vol 28, No 1, 1994.
Naidoo criticises those programs that marginalise multicultural literature by defining a separate place for
it in the English curriculum. She claims that this is paradoxical as it suggests an ‘us’ and ‘them’
mentality ‘whilst one of literature’s great qualities is that of allowing us to engage imaginatively in the
lives of others and to engage with their perceptions and by so doing, reflect on our own.’ (p 42)
She believes that texts ought to be read in conjunction with each other so that cross-cultural insights
can be encouraged.
Stephens, John & Watson, Ken, (eds), From Picture Book to Literary Theory, St Clair Press, Sydney, 1994.
This text provides teachers with a resource for applying some of the concepts central to contemporary
literary theory to the classroom. It consists of photocopiable activities for students using picture books
to explore how these theories can inform responses to texts. Beside each page of student activities is
an explanation of the particular theory for teachers.
8English Stage 6 Professional Readings
Thwaites, T, Davis, L & Mules, W, Tools for Cultural Studies, Macmillan Education Australia, Melbourne,
1994.
Written as an introductory textbook for tertiary level cultural studies and communications, this text offers
teachers the concepts and analytical tools for teaching the approaches to senior students. Its attitude
towards concepts is critical; it questions when and how ideas and processes are valuable.
Key notions such as semiotics, genre and intertextuality, narrative, mediation and ideology are
explained and given practical application in the analysis of different types of texts.
Berger, Arthur Asa, Popular Culture Genres, Theories and Texts, Sage Publications, California, 1992.
This very readable text examines major theories relating to the significance of genre. Berger deals with
genres from a theoretical perspective, explores issues regarding structures and relates these ideas to
narrative formulas and social and cultural meaning. Included are such issues as how the conventions of
different genres affect the composition and production of texts and responses to texts; the social and
political implications of particular genres; and why genres form, grow and decline in popularity.
In the second section of the book, Berger analyses examples of key genres in both their novel and film
versions: The Maltese Falcon (tough-guy detective), Murder on the Orient Express (classic detective),
Dr No (spy story), War of the Worlds (science fiction), and Frankenstein (horror).
His treatment of these works in the context of their genres is not only instructive but fascinating reading
as well.
Stephens, John, Reading the Signs: sense and significance in written texts, Kangaroo Press, 1992.
This book offers ways of analysing texts through the study of the sign systems by which the world is
represented. Stephens demonstrates how to consider the larger contexts in which texts are written and
read and relate this process to the close analysis of the language of texts. These macro and micro
considerations are interrelated and applied to a range of types of text including narrative, poetry, news
reports and speech. There are many illustrative examples of analytical processes appropriate to a
variety of texts, a check list of features applicable to text analysis and a dictionary of technical terms.
Thomson, Jack, Reconstructing Literature Teaching: New Essays on the Teaching of Literature, AATE,
1992.
This text contains an overview of contemporary literary theory from Leavis to post-structuralism. It also
includes essays which comment on and illustrate the ways in which these theories are adapated to
teaching literature in English classrooms in Australia.
Brown, Rexford, Schools of Thought: How the Politics of Literacy Shape Thinking in the Classroom, San
Francisco/Oxford, Jossey-Bass, 1991.
This important and very readable book gives an account of a major North American research project
that has relevance for all teachers of English. Brown and his research colleagues took as their starting
point a belief that emphasis on competence in basic skills is not enough: that a broader definition of
literacy — one that includes the capacity to think critically and creatively and to exercise judgment — is
needed. They then visited classrooms across the USA seeking schools and school districts that really
worked to develop more thoughtful students. It was not until they crossed the border into Canada that
they found such schools — in the Toronto school district.
Brown's final chapter, 'Cultivating a Literacy of Thoughtfulness', is an important subject for discussion in
all English staffrooms.
Fiske, John, Television Culture, Routledge, London, 1989.
This classic study of television as a medium of popular culture explains and provides examples of close
textual analysis of televisual products. Fiske also examines the relationships between the cultural and
commercial aspects of television. His analysis of individual programs offers insights into broad aspects
9English Stage 6 Professional Readings
of television criticism but many are not part of students’ television experience (eg The A –Team;
Cagney and Lacey).
Nelms, Ben F (ed), Literature in the Classroom: Readers, Texts and Contexts, NCTE, Urbana Illinois, 1988.
While this book’s scope is from primary to upper secondary, it gives excellent guidance in putting
theories, and especially reader-response theories, into practice. It is a practical text in its application.
Many of the essays map the individual teacher’s transition through different perspectives on the
teaching of English.
Responding and Composing
Ewart, Jacqui et al, Get Your Message Across, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards Aust, 1998.
This is a very practical book on writing workplace and community texts. It would be quite useful in
relation to aspects of Module C of Standard English, Module B of ESL and a number of the modules of
the Fundamentals of English course.
Martino, Wayne & Cook, Chris (eds), Gender and Texts, AATE with ETAWA, Australia, 1998.
This book is described as a professional development package and is the first of the Interface series
(which offers texts for teachers who work at the interface between theory and practice). The articles are
research-based and demonstrate how to deconstruct the gender bias in responding to and composing
texts. They have clear classroom applications in a range of activities aimed at middle and senior school
students.
Carter, R, Goddard, A, Reah, D, Sanger, K & Bowrigg, M, Working with Texts: A core book for language
analysis, Routledge, London and New York, 1997.
This book was developed particularly for A-level and undergraduate students and teachers of English
language. It provides an activity-based foundation for learning how to analyse texts. Its focus on
language considers signs and sounds, words and things, sentences and structures, and text and
context in both spoken and written discourses.
The activities are designed to show how language works in texts and in specific contexts. They cover a
wide range of genres, both literary and non-literary and are supported by commentary.
This core text has a range of smaller ‘satellite’ spin-offs that focus on particular contexts for language
use. These texts complement the core text or may be used alone if the foundation skills provided in the
core are already present. These satellite texts include:
Beard, Adrian, The Language of Sport
Goddard, Angela, The Language of Advertising
McRae, John, The Language of Poetry
Reah, Danuta, The Language of Newspapers
Ross, Alison, The Language of Humour
Sanger, Keith, The Language of Fiction.
Moore, John Noell, Interpreting Young Adult Literature: Literary Theory in the Secondary Classroom,
Boynton/Cook, Portsmouth NH, 1997.
This text does much to dispel teacher concerns over the plethora of new literary theories. It takes a
practical approach to aspects of literary theories that might be applied in the English classroom through
the following focus questions:
• How does the theory define the literary qualities of the text?
• What relation does the theory propose between the text and the author?
• What role does the theory ascribe to the reader?
10English Stage 6 Professional Readings
• How does the theory view the relationship between the text and reality?
• What status does the theory give to the medium of the text — language?
It gives valuable outlines of the theories and practical application of different theories to young adult
fiction, some of which will be familiar texts to NSW teachers.
Murray, Janet H, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, The Free Press, NY,
1997.
Beginning with Star Trek and the ‘feely’ movies of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, this book
explores the relationship between the actuality and the potential of computers and narrative. It has
interesting reflections on hypertext fiction, the history of narrative and its relationship with new
technologies from prior to the time of Gutenberg. Murray considers the ways in which changes in
narrative forms have often preceded the technology that subsequently uses them. It would be a useful
book for teachers and students in Advanced and Extension courses who intend to look at computer-
based texts.
It looks forward to the merging of computers, television, phones and narrative, particularly through
cyberdrama.
Snyder, Ilana (ed), Fro m Page to Screen, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, Australia, 1997.
This collection of essays seeks to account for some of the complex connections between literacy
practices and the use of technologies. It also critically examines the implications of technological
development for the pedagogies of literacy. The essays in this book offer a range of perspectives and
contribute to the development of theories of electronic literacies that are dynamic, critical and reflective.
They also explore some of the rhetorics of the new media, such as the shift to the visual and its role in
the meaning of a text, the different textual practices associated with the range of technologies of
communication, the ways in which links in hypertexts connote relationships and alter the meaning of the
points they connect and how non-linear texts enable us to express relativities and reflexiveness.
The pace and pressure of change impels teachers to incorporate technologies into their teaching to
ensure that students have access to, familiarity with, and a critical understanding of, these tools of
power. Snyder argues that we must explore this new terrain so that it is assessed with insight and
traversed wisely.
Tweddle, Sally, ‘A Curriculum for the Future: A Curriculum Built for Change’, English in Education, Vol 31,
No 2, 1997.
Tweddle argues that IT will democratise education, improve working conditions and offer solutions to
the needs of individuals in different areas of their lives. Therefore, the curriculum has to address:
• how people gain access
• how they manage the information overload
• how the burgeoning global culture can reduce the isolation of individuals
• the collaborative nature of IT culture.
She thinks classroom practice will be more collaborative and teachers will be co-learners in the face of
the masses of information. Monitoring and assessment will be influenced by the fact that computers can
provide running records of what students do with them.
Curricula will have to move from focusing on knowledge of texts to teaching knowledge about texts.
Students will need to understand how words interact with images and sounds and learn how to create
texts collaboratively with writers in different countries and of different cultures. This will require a
redefinition of the notion of text and a broader understanding of the activities of reading and writing.
11English Stage 6 Professional Readings
Facing up to the endless possibilities available, teachers need to:
• be explicit about textual theory
• use a metalanguage that can provide a framework for representing characteristics of texts
• present reading and writing as two aspects of the same process
• devise assessments that test what has been learned rather than what has been taught
• use assessment strategies that validate a range of forms of reading and writing in individual or
collaborative contexts
• use assessment approaches appropriate to modular construction of courses.
Crawford, Jane, ‘Pronunciation in the meaning-based classroom’, English in Australia, No 115, March,
1996.
The effective participation of second-language speakers in educational institutions is sometimes
hampered by poor pronunciation that not only causes communication breakdowns but can also result in
loss of confidence and feelings of frustration and isolation. This paper argues that exploring the use of
rhythm and intonation and their role in making meaning is similar in meaning-based classrooms to
analysis of the generic language. It can enhance understanding and help develop learner control.
In the second section, Crawford outlines ways in which teachers can use extracts from video drama to
help learners to explore the prosodic features of interaction and to compare their own pronunciation
with that of native speakers of the language.
Cruickshank, Ken, ‘Poetry Writing and ESL’, English in Australia, No 115, March, 1996.
This article outlines techniques for developing poetry writing in English with ESL students both at
beginner level and with classes of mixed native and non-native speakers. The ideas are based on work
trialled with students.
Cruickshank discusses the benefits of poetry writing for ESL students and how it develops their
understanding of poetry. He asserts that poetry writing is an excellent way to develop the language
skills of ESL students. By supplying structure and parts of lines, students can play with language in a
supportive context.
Farrell, Lesley, ‘People Like Us’, English in Australia, No 115, March, 1996.
In this article Farrell examines the unstated assumptions that underpin professional teaching practice
as English teachers are engaged in making distinctions between students’ texts and, ultimately,
between the students themselves. These distinctions are inevitably based on language use — on the
ways that we listen to and read the texts that students make.
Farrell explains that to become competent in a discourse we must learn to assume the socially
accepted ways of thinking and acting that come naturally participants in that discourse. The
relationships between language and culture are not simple and linear, but complex and discursive.
Culture influences discursive practice and discursive practice in turn influences all the cultures with
which it comes in contact.
Teaching only the mainstream-valued discursive practices entrenches certain discursive practices while
marginalising others without examining the assumptions that underpin them. Farrell concludes by
identifying a need to critically examine the practice of English and provide concrete alternatives to
established discursive practices.
Kress, Gunther & van Leeuwen, Theo, Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, Routledge, London
and New York, 1996.
This text provides a rigorous and detailed explanation of how to analyse images. Based on the
concepts expounded by Halliday, Kress and van Leeuwen develop a descriptive framework that can be
used as a tool for visual analysis.
The explanation is supported by analyses of texts in a wide variety of genres.
12English Stage 6 Professional Readings
Woods, Claire, ‘Cards on table — the creative and critical in English’, English in Australia, No 116, 1996.
In this review essay, Claire Woods explains and critiques two texts on argument: Richard Andrews’
Teaching and Learning Argument (Cassell, London 1995) and Competing and Consensual Voices
(Costello, Patrick and Mitchell (eds), Multilingual Matters, Avon, 1995). She explains how these texts
extend the notion of argument from a process of disagreement or competition to a way of reaching
consensus by sharing, presenting divergent views, and working towards agreement or acknowledging
the parameters of disagreement. This reconceptualisation of argument is valuable in developing
pedagogies that allow for collaborative, dialogic engagement with other people, their worlds and their
views. Argument must by its nature be socially situated and therefore it is both rhetorical and dialogic.
Woods endorses the view of several authors that the curriculum should build on students’ capacity for
playfulness, imagination and argument and should integrate the logical and creative through
experimentation with and exploration of argument.
Nelmes, Jill (ed), An Introduction to Film Studies, Routledge, London, 1996.
This encyclopaedic guide to film study will be of great assistance to teachers at all levels of expertise in
this area. It is a very readable text that deals with a wide variety of historical, national and technical
aspects of film study as well as the nature of film as text. It draws its material from a breadth of films
including some relevant to HSC study. The text explains in some detail key notions such as cinematic
codes, auteur, mise-en-scene, film genres and processes.
Snyder, Ilana, ‘Reconceptualising Literacy and Hypertext’, English in Australia, Vol 111, The Journal of the
Australian Association for the Teaching of English, 1995.
In this article, Ilana Snyder outlines the differences between traditional printed texts and electronic
hypertext. She goes on to explain how the differences can assist teachers in developing key activities of
English education such as critical thinking, transformation of knowledge and independent learning. She
also considers how technology can result in the evolution of new genres such as the argumentative
essay presenting multiple explanations and unreconciled contradictions rather than a single linear
argument.
Hypertext also assumes ways of replacing the consistency of a single voice with the play of
multiplicities, and it resists closure. Through its different modes and structures of text, hypertext allows
teachers to offer concrete representations of understanding literary theories.
Ilana Snyder warns against using hypertext to promote linear study of texts and purely functional
aspects of communication without questioning the systems and social conditions that have developed
the technology to produce hypertext.
Ronald Carter, ‘Knowledge About Language in the Curriculum’, in Teaching English, Susan Baindling (ed),
Routledge, London, New York, 1994.
In his description and analysis of the LINC (Language in the National Curriculum) project, Carter
stresses the importance a dynamic model of language which acknowledges valid variation over time,
from place to place and according to the mode of production. ‘In fact, a principal and underlying
motivation for the LINC project is a concern with language variation.‘ Carter endorses the two main
rationales, cognitive and social, for knowledge about language put forward in the Cox Report (1989).
The LINC model of language integrates Halliday’s functional approach with Britton’s theories of
language development and focuses on the making of meaning within the contexts of culture which
determine the purpose, audience settings and topics of language. It is based on the notion that texts
are created by making appropriate language choices according to these purposes, audiences etc. The
LINC project supports an analysis of language that is both descriptive and precise. It emphasises
competent use of language varieties that match situations relevant to the pupils’ lives.
Carter believes that students will benefit from detailed consideration of the forms and functions of
language variation — they will develop the capacity to arrange, and to reflect on the arrangement and
effectiveness of, the gamut of possible varieties.
13English Stage 6 Professional Readings
Fennick, R, Peters, M & Guyon, L, ‘Solving Problems in Twenty-first Century Academic and Workplace
Writing’, English Journal, March, 1993.
Traditionally, teachers have been reluctant to incorporate the kinds of writing required in real world
situations — the kind of writing students will use in their future careers. This article suggests ways in
which real-world writing can be a part of the English curriculum. The emphasis on the interactive nature
of language processes and students’ involvement in the activities and resources required to produce
texts are key elements to this approach.
The writers claim that four skills need to be emphasised:
• completion of whole, complex projects with value attached to the development and understanding of
the process
• collaborative problem solving
• adaptation of texts and processes of textual production for specific audiences and purposes
• the role and scope of different media of communication.
The article then continues to give examples of specific project areas.
Mansfield, Margaret A, ‘Real World Writing and the English Curriculum’, College Composition and
Communication, Vol 4, No 1, 1993.
This is a report on a piece of tertiary level action research but it offers solutions to problems of
relevance in the English curriculum for many secondary students. Mansfield initiated the research,
writing a questionnaire for an MA course in Writing for the Public.
The ‘real world’ writing began with memos between all members of the project (including the teacher in
a supervisory role), orchestrating their different research tasks. At this stage the writing was largely
‘transactional’ — getting things done. Notions of audience included the recipient of the memo who had
to understand how different facets of the work were fitting together, the writing self who was clarifying
and documenting their own goals, and the supervisor/teacher. There were productive difficulties with
the supervisor/teacher’s dual role. Students complained that the end result of a set of grades rendered
the exercise ‘unauthentic‘. Other students drew on their experience of the workplace to argue that ‘real
world writing’ is very often supervised by an authority, or retained as potential evidence or explanation
should an authority become interested after the event.
The writing of the questionnaire itself was successful because of the one-chance-only precision
required in large-scale, anonymous communication via the post. The students found the writing
technically challenging and satisfying. Students’ notions of what it means to have writing published
were freed from a preoccupation with any star-like qualities in the identity of the author, to a concern
with successful communication. They had gained insights into the complexity of audience, varieties of
collaboration and how many people write for a living or as part of a living, and what sorts of writing they
do and how they write.
Pope, Carol A, ‘Our Time Has Come: English for the Twenty-first Century’, English Journal, March, 1993.
This article synthesises information based on recent research and theory in the language arts. It
identifies areas of proficiency that need to be developed for students who will join the world of work.
These are
• the ability to communicate and work collaboratively
• the ability to work productively in a multicultural context
• critical thinking
• adaptability
• technological competence.
The development of these skills involves considerable changes to the English curriculum and the
traditional classroom context.
14English Stage 6 Professional Readings
Pope summarises the findings of research that need to be integrated with the development of these
skills:
Writing
The research endorses the use of approaches that guide and support; attention to audience and
purpose; writing to explore, clarify and question in order to communicate and persuade; collaborative
writing, folios, peer evaluation and self-evaluation, conferencing, revision using word processor.
Literature
Continued effect of reader-response theory; building of experiential schema; cultural diversity, viewing
texts from a range of perspectives, wide reading.
Language
Teaching grammar in isolation does not make students better writers or readers. Contextualised study
of language; consideration of audience and purpose, respect for a variety of dialects and idiomatic
uses.
Dixon, John, (1992) ‘Categories to Frame an English Curriculum?’, English in Education, Vol 28, No 1.
Dixon argues that the performance element of both drama and media should be central in the teaching
of English. ‘Social performance offers a norm for some students of literature and the necessary aid for
all. ‘ Printed signs are a relatively crude and simplified notation for speech, when one considers timbre,
tempo, pitch range and stress.
Within group performance in media or drama, the techniques of social conflict and cooperation are
showcased. Words are just one set of signs used when the participants accuse, refute, deny, accept,
confess, confirm, refine, extend, concede, propose, amend and so forth. He suggests these are among
the fundamental processes for English study.
Turner, Graeme, Film as Social Practice, Routledge, London and NY, 1988.
Teachers who do not have a strong background in film and film theory will find this a useful guide to the
study of film generally. It also has particular relevance to the ways in which the study of film has been
incorporated into the new English Stage 6 Syllabus. It relates film to key concepts in the syllabus such
as meaning, representation and culture. The chapter headings are a good guide to its relevance: The
feature film industry, From seventh art to social practice – a history of film studies, Film languages, Film
narrative, Film audiences, Film culture and ideology and Applications.
The text draws a number of its examples from the Australian film industry.
Assessment
Wyatt-Smith, Claire, ‘Teaching and Assessing Writing: an Australian Perspective’, English in Education,
Vol 31, No 3, 1997.
Wyatt-Smith suggests that English teachers have drawn on understandings about teaching and
assessing genres to construct task specifications for assessment purposes including statements of
criteria and standards. Her examples of such task specifications make explicit the coherence between
curriculum and assessment. They specify such criteria as context-text connections and appropriateness
of genre to purpose and audience. These items represent attempts to make public the features upon
which judgements are based. They also assist in developing for students a language to talk about
assessment expectations and outcomes. This in turn facilitates their self-assessment.
15English Stage 6 Professional Readings
Elbow, Peter, ‘Will the virtues of portfolios blind us to their potential dangers?’, in Black, Laurel et al (eds),
New Directions in Portfolio Assessment: Reflective practice, Critical Theory and Large Scale Scoring,
Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, Portsmouth, 1994.
This essay questions whether the virtues of portfolio assessment will blind us to potential dangers.
Elbow enumerates the benefits of portfolio assessment which are a consequence of its dual nature as a
packaged instant perception of what was produced over time: teachers can serve as both friend and
critic; process and product can be valued; students can write for themselves then revise for an
audience; lower order language skills can be the least and most important things to think about in the
writing, and teaching and testing do not have to conflict.
Elbow goes on to criticise specifically the use of holistic scoring with portfolios, claiming that there can
be no real evaluation of any complex performance with a single number holistic score and insists that
something more descriptive or analytic needs to be developed.
Robbins, S, Brandt, N, Goering, S, Nassif, J & Wascha, K, ‘Using Portfolio Reflections to Re-form
Instructional Programs and Build Curriculum’, English Journal, Nov, 1994.
The article seeks to demonstrate that in practice the dichotomy between cultural literacy and growth
models is a false one. Robbins et al argue that reflective portfolios enable teachers to respond closely
to students’ experience in guiding them through cultural touchstones (‘the canon’, locally conceived).
It includes innovations such as parents/guardians contributing a reflective essay on each student’s
progress; students choosing whether assessments should be by ‘best works’ or ‘developmental’
portfolio.
Masters, G & Forster, M, Portfolios Assessment Resource Kit, The Australian Council for Educational
Research, Melbourne, 1996.
An informative, practical and easy to read booklet. It covers topics such as types of portfolios and
designing portfolio assessments. However, the examples relate more to primary education.
Masters, G & Forster, M, Progress Maps Assessment Resource Kit, The Australian Council for Educational
Research, Melbourne, 1996.
A progress map describes the nature of development in an area of learning. This resource kit shows
teachers how to construct and use progress maps. These maps will give teachers some good ideas
which can be adapted to measuring student achievement in a standards-referenced framework.
Withers, G, From Marks to Profiles and Records of Achievement, Deakin University Press, Victoria, 1991.
This is an easy to read book, which succinctly explains the assessment continuum comprising
normative, standards-referenced, criterion-referenced and descriptive assessment as well as exploring
ways of recording and reporting student achievement.
Cole, D J, Ryan, C W & Kick, F, Portfolios Across the Curriculum and Beyond, Corwin Press Inc, 1995.
This book contains concise information about using portfolios as an assessment tool.
Gronlund, N E, Assessment of Student Achievement, Sixth Edition, Allyn & Bacon, 1997.
This is an informative and not too technical explanation of various types of assessment tools. A good
reference book on assessment issues.
Habeshaw, S, Gibbs, G & Habeshaw, T, Interesting Ways to Assess Your Students, Technical and Educational
Services, Bristol UK, 1986.
This is a practical explanation of various types of assessments. Brief explanations are given of different
types of assessment contexts. It looks at issues such as assessing group project work, criteria, peer
assessment, and providing feedback to students, as well as common assessment issues.
Websites
16English Stage 6 Professional Readings
http://interact.uoregon.edu/MediaLit/HomePage is the entry to The Media Literacy Online Project based
at the College of Education, University of Oregon. The site contains a variety of readings on media
literacy and education topics, lesson plans, assessment and research. It also provides links to online
journals and education websites.
http://www.aber.ac.uk/~dgc/sem13.html is produced by Daniel Chandler, lecturer in media theory in the
Department of Education of the University of Wales.
It contains a course on semiotics for beginners, a rich reference section with hyperlinks and a
downloadable copy of the full text of his book The Act of Writing: A Media Theory Approach. The links
are often search engines with a vast array of relevant searchable options.
http://www.filmaust.com.au/ is the site for Film Australia. It contains a library of its releases as well as
summary statements of their content and audience interest. Many of the items offer teacher notes and
material relating to particular productions.
http://www.ipl.org/ref/litcrit/
The Internet Public Library Online Literary Criticism Collection contains 2504 critical and biographical
websites about authors and their works that can be browsed by author, by title, or by nationality and
literary period.
http://english-server.hss.cmu.edu/
This is the E-Server at Carnegie Mellon University. It has an extraordinary range of texts and web links
of value and interest to English teachers.
http://www.eastgate.com
This site has relevant information about hypertext including a section on hypertext criticism. Its section
hypertext kitchen offers a variety of articles on hypertext and entertaining activities.
http://www.curriculum.edu.au/accessasia/network
This website offers a rich source of material for teachers, enabling them to share ideas with other
teachers around Australia through an email discussion group, providing information about Studies of
Asia events happening around Australia, annotated website links for Studies of Asia and practical
information and classroom resources about Asian countries, their societies and cultures. It also offers a
catalogue of resources, anthologies of Asian literature, material on citizenship in Asia, lesson plans
relevant to a wide range of subjects and hot links to other quality websites.
Anthologies of Asia is intended to enable English teachers to include traditional and contemporary texts
from Asia in the curriculum and presents a wide variety of genres of written and visual texts. The
website as a whole could be used in Year 11 as a study in website construction in preparation for multi
media texts in the HSC Stage 6 English syllabus.
17You can also read
